


The Legions coffee shop

by WahlBuilder



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Mass Effect, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, M/M, Multi, in the Citadel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6313477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Legions coffee shop is one of the most famous on the Citadel, and Shepard comes there to gather intelligence about very interesting people. And to eat cakes, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Legions coffee shop

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from [tumblr](http://kaimalak.tumblr.com/post/138076939400/unexpected-imperial-inquisition).  
> The original idea was: "Think about Warhammer 40k set in a coffee shop, with Commander Shepard as the ninja."

Shepard tugged the collar of his jacket higher. It was uncomfortable, too tight in the wrong places, with swirls of purple and yellow crawling across the fabric and changing every second, but it drew attention away from Shepard’s face. Everybody would remember this atrocity of a jacket and not the man who was wearing it.

He ordered black coffee and a piece of chocolate cake, blinking for a moment at the impossible sapphire eyes of the guy who took his order. Contacts or surgery? No, they looked too beautiful to be artificial. With blond hair sticking into every direction the guy looked almost like a supermodel or an actor from holo-opera, if not for him being a hulking brute two and a half meters tall and flashing a scar running vertically down his face. He was made for the battlefield, not for serving coffee.

Shepard took his order, thanked the blondie, and went to the couch he had occupied yesterday. He could watch the whole coffee shop from that place.

The _Legions_ was the most famous coffee shop on the Citadel – made famous not only by astounding handmade cakes that melted on your tongue and turned into velvet bliss of taste, but also by very handsome workers. And there was ‘handsome’ for every taste: the intimidating intensity of Abaddon who made amazing coffee, the flirtatious warmth of Torgaddon – the one who was responsible for cakes, – the cruel sharpness of Sevatar’s features, the scarred brutality of Kharn. Plus, this blondie whom Shepard hadn’t met yesterday. All tall and big, all professional. All human.

Shepard’s mission was simple: sit and watch. Apparently, the _Legions_ attracted all sorts of interesting people.

Yesterday hadn’t been really fruitful. Among the visitors and clients and patrons of the coffee shop Shepard had only noticed one person – but what a person it was! The famous rebellous quarian Admiral, Motarion, the Prince of Death himself, wrapped in a cloak, accompanied by his sons Typhon and Nathaniel. Mortarion had left the Flotilla long time ago, and several ships had followed him. Rumours were that Mortarion, a biologist and chemist, sought to cure the quarians, but he couldn’t do it while tied to the Flotilla. That visit had been made more interesting by the fact that they were meeting with another notable individuals, Jubal Khan, a turian mercenary, and Saul Tarvitz, a human apprentice of the famous artist and patron of arts Fulgrim. Shepard had choked on his coffee when he saw them. What connections did they have with the rebel quarians? But when Tarvitz had taken Nathaniel’s gloved hand, Shepard had smiled into his coffee. 

Personal connection, it seemed.

He shook his head, remembering that scene, then almost spit his drink when a tall figure entered the coffee shop, ringing an ancient bell hanging over the door.

Of course there was nothing wrong with people coming to the coffee shop. The coffee was good here, after all, not to mention the cakes. But it was definitely surprising to see a person who could buy this coffee shop and all other coffee shops on the Citadel – along with the Citadel itself – casually striding to the counter and leaning over it, shaking short snow-white hair. Rogal Dorn, the head of House Dorn, in the flesh. 

On the Old Earth, he would have been a royalty, but nowadays, he was more than that, one of the most influental humans of the Citadel space. His _Fists_ were tasked with repairing the Citadel and building new neighbourhoods. As well as designing and building things on other planets across the Citadel space. Together with his brother Perturabo – who was an _asari_ and Shepard didn’t even want to think how it was possible – they were the most effective architects and engineers. They didn’t compete for clients – _clients_ competed for them.

Shepard scooped chocolate cream from his cake, but the spoon stopped a breath short of his mouth.

The same blondie who took Shepard’s order came to Dorn, and there was… _something_ going on, behind the usual polite exchange between a guest and a worker. The blondie was looking at Dorn like the architect himself was a piece of chocolate cake. A whole cake, and the blondie intended to eat it whole.

Shepard couldn’t deny the attractiveness of the tall, brown-skinned leader of House Dorn, but there was more to it.

They _knew_ each other.

And then Dorn smiled to blondie – a small, private smile, only between the two of them.

The head of the architect empire and a coffee shop boy? This information was definitely worth wearing a ridiculous jacket. Even if Shepard didn’t intent on telling anyone about it. He could imagine that a person like Dorn suffered under the constant crutiny of media and society, and here, in this coffee shop, he could afford some peace for himself. And Shepard wasn’t going to take it from him.

They all needed something for themselves, regardless of their position or responsibilities.


End file.
